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MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

BEING MY FIRST ADDRESS 
TO AN AMERICAN AUDIENCE 



[WITH NOTES AND APPENDIX AND AN INTRODUCTION 
BY LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D., LL.D.] 

BY CHARLES WAGNER 

AUTHOR OF THE SIMPLE LIFE, THE BETTER WAY 
BY THE FIRESIDE, ETC. 







NEW YORK 

^cCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 

MCMV 









LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
two Copies deceived 

JAN 30 1905 

n CopyngiH Liitry 
%UtSS Ou AXc, Noj 
COPY B. 




Copyright, 1905, by 
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
Published, January, 1905 JV 



As a hearty good-bye to my American 
friends, I send them this little book. 
May it be a new link between them and 
myself. I leave the shores of America 
with immense riches of happy recollec- 
tions and the hope to come again. 

God bless your great President, your 

lordly country, your children and you 

all. 

C. WAGNER 

Dec. 1st, 1904 



INTRODUCTION 

BY 

LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D., LL.D 



Some of the critics are asking, what is the se- 
cret of Mr. Wagner's extraordinary popularity ? 
There is nothing, they say, original in his books, 
nothing, certainly, original in "The Simple 
Life"; and they are quite right. "The Simple 
Life" reaffirms and reillustrates simple truths 
older than Christianity. But the critics are mis- 
taken in supposing that the world's greatest 
need is new truth, or even old truth put in 
strikingly new forms. What it needs much 
more is old and familiar truth so presented as 
to become powerful in the lives of men. It needs 
vitalized truth rather than new truth, and Mr. 
Wagner has given to the world vitalized truth. 
The life of the twentieth century is extraordi- 
narily complex; this complexity is in part due 
to our economic, social, and ethical progress; 
but it is in part due to false estimates of values, 



INTRODUCTION 

to the habit, as old as the human race, of putting 
the material above the spiritual, the transitory 
above the eternal, things above men. All peo- 
ples in this commercial age, and, in some sense, 
pre-eminently the American people, needed a 
message which would rouse them to them- 
selves, which would make them apply common 
sense to life problems, and estimate the real 
and the temporal, the material and the spiritual 
in their right relations. This Mr. Wagner has 
done. His books, and especially "The Simple 
Life, " owe their popularity to the fact that he 
has brought to the age a message which the age 
needed, and he has so presented that message 
that the age is listening to it, and perhaps heed- 
ing it. 

What has enabled him to present this mes- 
sage so that the world hears and heeds, is not 
merely his keen perception of the need, his 
realization of truth in its concrete, that is, its 
vital forms, his pictorial imagination, his mas- 
tery of style. More than any or all of these 
qualities combined is the fact that his books 



INTRODUCTION 

are the spontaneous expression of his own ex- 
perience; his own life is in his writings. It is 
because he preserves his youth in middle life, 
that he can write of youth ; it is because he lives 
a simple life in the gayest capital of Europe, 
that he can write of the simple life. The critic 
who does not understand this secret of spiritual 
power calls Mr. Wagner egotistical. It is true 
that he writes of himself, but the critic should 
remember that the greatest spiritual writings 
are in the same sense egotistical. It is this 
naive egotism, this self -revelation, which is the 
farthest possible removed from self-conceit, that 
gives perpetuity to such literature as the He- 
brew Psalter, the Epistles of Paul, the poetry 
of Dante, the fiction of Victor Hugo, the 
preaching of Jonathan Edwards and Phillips 
Brooks. Some of these are more egotistical in 
form than others, but they all palpitate with 
that life which only the self -revelation of a true 
experience can impart to the printed page. In 
this little volume Mr. Wagner talks of himself 
with the simplicity of a child, and lets all his 



INTRO DUCTION 

readers see what is the secret of his power. If 
every preacher would discover that secret and 
attain that power there would be no longer 
any complaint of empty pews. The world's 
chief need is great and simple truth applied 
to present needs, and expressed with the power 
which only a living experience can impart. It 
is because Charles Wagner meets this need 
that his writings are so eagerly sought and so 
widely read. 

Lyman Abbott 

January 1st, 1905 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 



Ladies and Gentlemen : — Before beginning 
this lecture — before even greeting you — I have 
to offer you a confession: I am anxious, 
sincerely anxious, and the reason thereof is 
as short to give as it is easy to understand. I 
am anxious, for never has such a young English 
speaker filled a pulpit in this country. If you see 
on this tribune a grey-haired head, it owns to 
the Frenchman in myself. And that French- 
man is quite fifty-two. As for the English-speak- 
ing man, he is only about one and a half, and 
he speaks like his age. Serious accidents are to 
happen. When I say accidents, I ought to say 
real crimes. Here you shall have the sight of a 
man using (I am afraid) your sweet lan- 
guage very roughly. There will be wounded 
adjectives, murdered verbs, lynched pronouns. 
But you may be sure that if these crimes are 
[3] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

perpetrated, there is neither malice nor pre- 
meditation. And thus having made before- 
hand for them a proper apology and been 
fully horrified by them, I dare to beg of you a 
large, a magnanimous, and, if I may say, an 
American absolution. 



And now, dear friends, let me greet you 
heartily: on the occasion of this first visit, so 
empassioning for me, let me greet the grand, 
the lordly America ! A nation is like an ocean. 
Facing a nation new to me, it seems I am on 
the shore of an immense sea. now smiling, now 
severe. And not only do I look at the present 
waves, the people living just at this moment: 
I see far away, above your heads, the phan- 
tasms of your immortal ancestors crowning the 
limits of your history, as, when comes down 
the eventide, golden clouds do crown the top 
of the hills. And still above the business of the 
day, above even the heroic past. I gaze on your 
national ideal, the true American ideal such as 
vour President has realized in happv words, 

[*] 



CHARLE B W A G N E B 

in strenuous deeds, such as you have symbolized 
in your flag — an ideal so pure and seated so 
high, that you would embody it neither 
by any form nor colour of things which vanish 
away, but only by that what is firm and im- 
mutable, namely, the stars of the sky. 



Now that we are met, the first care may be 
to fill scrupulously the hours given us to spend 
together. If time is money, life is gold. I want 
to make two parts of my time here in America, 
The first part shall be for learning, for listening, 
like a diligent scholar, in that strenuous school 
of men which is America. In the second part, I 
shall by to give you the best of my own treasury. 

What I come to learn and to watch here is 
not, in the first range, the lustre of your tre- 
mendous activity, the torrent-like agitation of 
your cyclopic cities, the miracles of your indus- 
try, the gigantic character of your large coun- 
try, its rivers and its mountains. All that is 
great, is an object of amazement over the 
whole world. Yet all that is but the visible sign 
[5] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

of an invisible spirit. World and nature come 
from Spirit. Civilizations, as many as there are, 
societies, cities and laws, are the work of men, 
burst out of man's heart. "Heart," says the 
Holy Writ, " is the well-spring of life." And 
that is what I am here to search after: the heart 
of America. I want to find out the hidden 
moving-power of your manly walking ever and 
ever ahead! I am a pilgrim toward the in- 
most sanctuary, where is burning the sacred 
fire of your tradition, of your faith, of your 
ideal, that fire which lighted the old times, 
which you ought to keep alive, carefully, in 
order that it may still be enlightening and 
warning your present and even shedding a 
leading ray over the paths of the future. May 
I find the way of your hearts. May all my jour- 
ney over this country, my visit at your broth- 
erly homes, become a work of love and a bless- 
ing in many ways. What I am able to offer is 
very little, if I consider all that which you will 
give to me. But that very little will be given 
heartily. I bring you the best part of myself, 
[6] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

the inmost and very precious part of a man's 
experience, the result of his labour and of the 
working of God in his soul — in one word, my 
faith; that of which I live, that which, in the 
deepest secret of my own self, is my inspiring 
spirit. 

I want to speak to you about the simple life, 
the true life which is the secret of all my work, 
which is born out of my experiences among 
the world. I wish to show you the birth of my 
ideas and also of my books. For, what I think, 
what I say, whatever I have written, all that 
grows out of life itself. I am not a recluse, or 
sedentary refiner, or a dreamer hunting in his 
narrow cell some impracticable Utopia. I am 
no more one of those who turn their back 
towards the future, who have their eyes en- 
lightened only by the pale gleam of the past 
and never have suspected there was round 
about them a living world. I have nothing in 
common with these dyspeptic minds lamenting 
eternally and sad to death that they were not 
born in the times of their great-grandfathers. 
[7] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

I am the son of this time. I love it passionately. 
Every day I find it more fascinating. I love it 
for its greatness, its intense labour; I love it, too, 
for its miseries and its pains. And precisely be- 
cause I love it, I can't bear seeing the men of 
to-day wasting their strength, their money, 
their blood for idle fancies. I would be one 
of those who deliver us from these dead 
idols, to which we sacrifice ourselves and our 
welfare. From all the roads I have been tread- 
ing, from all my observation among my fellow- 
men, I have learned a lesson which grows 
clearer for me the more I am advancing in age : 
One thing is necessary — that man make a good 
use of his life. Life is the highest gift we have 
received; it must not be wasted for mere 
smoke; it ought to serve the purpose which was 
in the mind of the Lord of Life when he gave it 
to us. In order to realize that purpose life needs 
to be a normal one. A normal life is a simplified 
life disencumbered of useless baggage, and 
working a maximum of beauty, justice, confi- 
dence in God and human bounty — a maxi- 
[8] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

mum of happiness with a minimum of embar- 
rassment. Wherever simplicity fails, over- 
growing weed invades the garden of life; the 
unnecessary, the accessory, the wrong and false 
take the place of the necessary, the import- 
ant, the authentic — and the bright appear- 
ance of such a vainglorious life is but a 
gilded frame for naught and despair. 



The root of a man's life is in his infancy. I 
will therefore begin by speaking to you of 
mine — not for the vain satisfaction of speaking 
of myself but in an universal human interest. 
For there will always be children, and every 
day the question of education will come to the 
front. 

Education may either lead man to the true 
and simple life or prevent him from attaining it. 
In telling you of the origin, and, so to speak, 
of the incubation of my ideas, I must remember 
that there are some conditions favourable to 
such an incubation and others that are very 
unfavourable. All the conditions of my infancy 
[9] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

were particularly propitious to the birth of 
an independent will and a personal form of 
thought. 

Without doubt, each man has a natural gift, 
an innate capital which is difficult to explain, 
which constitutes his primitive substance. This 
substance has a marvellous power of resistance. 
In speaking of certain individualities, the poet 
Alfred de Musset says : 

"La moule en est d'airain si I'ispere en est rare- 
Elle, La nature, salt ce que vaut son marbre de 

Carrare 
Et que les eaux du ciel ne Ventament jamais" 

" Their species is rare, their shape is bronze." 
She knows the worth of her Carrara marble, and 
how it resists for ever the attacks of time." 

There exists, too, in each one of us the heredi- 
tary family marks. In Goethe's exquisite book, 
"Truth and Poetry," he speaks of the inheri- 
tance of one's fathers and says: "From my 
father I have the stature, the earnest driving 
[10] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

of life; from little mother, a joyous nature and 
the pleasure of imagining fables." 

"Vom Voter hab ich die Statur 
Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren 
Vom Mutterchen die Frohnatur 
Und Lust zum Fabuliren." 

We all know the sayings " He is a born poet " 
and " Genius comes from heaven." In a numer- 
ous series of such formulas the wisdom of na- 
tions affirms the truth that an important part 
of what man may become in life lies within 
him in germ from the day of his birth. A good 
deal of this future is determined at that very 
moment in his flesh and blood and in the ele- 
ments of his intellectual and moral nature, as 
it is with the bird in the egg. 

Nevertheless, it is true that the circumstances 
that surround our childhood and the education 
we receive exercise an immense influence on 
our fundamental natures. Be it gold, marble, 
granite, or simple clay, how much depends on 

[ii] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

the way it is handled ! A bad workman can spoil 
a block of the finest marble; a genius can im- 
mortalize a block of common stone or breathe 
a soul into a lump of clay. This bad workman, 
this genius symbolizes education in its different 
works. Yet, it must never be forgotten, human 
nature with its inborn vitality is very different 
from the matter that is modelled or cut by the 
sculptor, because it is not an inert mass, but a 
living and sensitive. 

The soul of a child needs rather to be watched 
with intelligence than cut into shape like a 
block of marble or modelled like clay. The 
secret of education is difficult to find because 
it varies with the subjects to educate. That is 
why so many men suffer from their earliest in- 
fancy. Some suffer from carelessness — others 
from an excess of training, from a too constant 
supervision. They are watched over, sheltered 
exceedingly, and finally extinguished. In this 
way we destroy the rising originality and at best 
we produce but conventional characters — here 
lies the danger of these ultra-careful educations 
[12] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

where everything is foreseen and mapped out 
beforehand. Those who suffer the most from 
such education are the warm-hearted and the 
impetuous children. 

I was happy in having parents who watched 
over my infancy in such an intelligent manner 
that I hardly felt their supervision. Their in- 
fluence was discreet and did not cast too deep a 
shadow on my young intelligence. They did not 
apply to me the system of precocious instruc- 
tion at a period when ambitious parents stuff 
the just awakening spirit of children with ab- 
stract knowledge. They held it better to keep 
my mind alive by answering my questions, and 
in putting before me many things able to at- 
tract my attention. As I was naturally curious 
and fond of observing all that came within my 
reach, a great deal of time was given to me for 
looking and listening round about, in garden and 
fields. No screen in the shape of a prematurely 
given book, came between me and the living 
book of the universe. I have not been like so 
many young people, the victim of education, 
[13] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

shut up in a room or forced in a hotbed. I am 
open-air bred. I received what becomes so rare 
now-a-days, in this utilitarian and hurried 
epoch, a quiet and calm education, which is 
quite impossible in our monstrous cities. And I 
grew up in the peaceful surroundings of a vil- 
lage among good-natured labourers and woods- 
men, enjoying healthy and happy liberty. At 
the same time the moral and religious author- 
ity that my parents exercised over me was never 
heavy handed. It was sufficient to direct my 
will without compressing it. It did neither 
break, nor pervert, by any brutal or intrusive 
action the mainspring of my mental activity. 
Every manifestation of initiative was encour- 
aged with joy. Of course that education was 
more latent than manifest, and some pedantic 
school-masters would have been able to denounce 
it. My father had to fight for my liberty. When 
people exclaimed, "What! this boy is already 
six years old and cannot write!" my father 
used to reply: "What would he write if he 
could write ?" One of those infallible boy-dril- 
[14] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

lers, croaking one day about my future, said 
magisterially: "Nothing will ever come out of 
him." 

To give you an example of that education, I 
will tell you of a fact touching more directly 
my religious education. About that education, 
every one knows it well, many parents and edu- 
cators of youth think they can never interfere 
either too much or too early. My father was a 
country pastor. I followed the church services 
and very piously said my prayers morning and 
night. But I was not overwhelmed by religious 
observances. My soul being naturally religious 
all things seemed to me holy. I walked 
through nature like ancients through sacred 
woods. Especially at nightfall the stars impress- 
ed me exceedingly. They spoke to me and I to 
them. I still remember the little gallery on the 
front of the parson's house where I used to 
kneel and worship the moon. Certainly my 
father noticed my devotions but he never 
prevented them, or disturbed me, showing me 
their idolatrous character. What reason could 
[15] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

he have for keeping silence in such a grave op- 
portunity? Not another reason than his well 
deliberate respect for my inner life. Although 
it could be called an abominable heathenism, 
he respected the childlike manifestations of my 
religious feeling because he saw they were 
spontaneous and full of life. No doubt he said 
to himself: "The boy is too young to under- 
stand that God is Spirit : let him at present 
worship the moon and take it for a living being. 
It will develop in him the consciousness of 
what is divine; and when he will get older he 
will worship that invisible Light of which all 
visible light is only the faint image." 



My childhood has left such a deep impres- 
sion in my memory, that not only do I go back 
in thought to it with pleasure, but I also find 
in it an inexhaustible treasure of healthy and 
fresh impressions like a spring of everlasting 
youth. 

When I need to live the deep life, I turn to 
the soul of my childhood, and I look at men and 
[16] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

things, birds, flowers, the heavens, and earth 
with the eyes of the child I was. I would not 
give up these pure memories, the sereneness, 
the feeling of blessed safety, the sentiment of 
universal intimacy in which one has a brotherly 
feeling for the ants that run under the grass and 
for the sunbeams that play on the meadow ; 
— I would not give them up for all the 
riches of the world. For they are the chief capi- 
tal, the true foundation on which is built the 
fortune of a lifetime. Without them we should 
be miserable, and wasted by a hopeless decay. 
So I go on my way repeating to my contem- 
poraries: if you have children let them live 
their own life; do not deprive them of the 
dews of the morning by a too early contact 
with the dry wisdom of outgrown people. Let 
them be young, be really children. Even if they 
make mistakes allow them time for reflection, 
for personal observation, so that they may find 
the nourishing substance that God has put for 
them into all things that are true, authentic, 
simple. And, if you can, put them soon, often, 
[17] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

and for as long time as possible, in contact with 
nature, with mountains, woods, fields, and 
with that glorious firmament on high which is 
the marvel of marvels. The rivulets that babble 
under the reeds, and the leaves that whisper on 
the branches in the mysterious recesses of the 
forest, have much to say to the children of men. 
They are the bearers of a message about things 
that are good, and sweet to hear; about things, 
no voice of a teacher, or of an artist, or of a 
book will ever reveal to them — things that 
awaken in their innermost heart that divine and 
inexpressible being we call the soul. 



I was very young when I lost my father, and 
later on I missed him bitterly. When still a 
youth, I was left to my own self for many 
very weighty matters. But of this first educa- 
tion, I have kept the great law of my evolu- 
tion, the love of the simple and of the true, 
the hatred of everything which is artificial and 
fictitious in all the spheres of human working. 
And so, wherever I have walked, life spoke 
[18] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

to me a personal word. I had not to take 
an interpreter to translate for me the voice of 
nature, nor did I want to take any cicerone 
who would show and comment to me the pic- 
tures of the creation. I did not wish to secure for 
me either an intermediate agent between God 
and my conscience, or any kind of broker be- 
tween myself and myself. In all directions I 
pointed straight to the well-spring. I believe 
that God has given to every man as much 
as to every tree his own roots wherewith he 
may suck up the sap necessary to raise his 
fruits. I am no disbeliever; I am rather and at 
the bottom a believer. But my faith spread its 
wings above the formulas and dogmas. I am not 
mistrustful. But never shall I be satisfied with 
whatever maybe told by one of our fellow-men 
about God, about the Universe, about the soul, 
or what is human or divine. I hold that here 
is no truth to }be obtained by proxy. No- 
body is able to drink for me; I want to drink for 
myself. Every one of us needs self -thinking and 
ought to go to the source. The fictitious life, 
[19] 



MY APPEAL, TO AMERICA 

the conventional truth, which we mean to buy 
is very expensive. It costs our liberty, dignity, 
and many other precious things although it has 
no value. The true and simple life which gives 
peace to the soul; the life-giving truth, all that 
costs but little; it wants only to work, yet either 
the money or the influence of the whole world 
could not buy it. Therefore said the Prophet: 
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters; yea come, without money, and with- 
out price." 

You may object that such a method, quite 
individual and independent, would be a hin- 
derance to our understanding the experiences of 
other men, and also a hinderance to hold in 
veneration as it is due and as we need it, the old 
and sacred traditions. But it is shown clearly 
by many proofs that only self -thinking men are 
seriously able to discern others' thoughts. So 
doing, they work their daily work, whilst men 
satisfied with commonplaces and ready ideas 
have no ability to judge. They are only able to 
accept summarily, or briefly reject, others' ideas 
[20] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

without contesting them. As for the traditions 
of the past, they are only revered in as much as 
we may grasp their deep spiritual meaning and 
perpetuate it. To rekindle, to warm them again 
at the fire of our life; to make them useful and 
helpful for the present day, is it not the true and 
fruitful manner of hallowing them ? 

Nevertheless, there are some risks in such a 
method. A young man ought to be reserved. 
Only a due modesty enables him to receive all 
sorts of good warnings. When his own ideas 
are condemned by the people among whom he 
lives he may be stopped by a dilemma like 
this: Either he shall lose the proper reserve 
in order to remain himself, or he shall waste 
his own individuality before the world's opin- 
ion. On both sides lies risk. A great many young 
men do not escape the danger in the time their 
character is taking its decisive shape. Some 
grow overestimating themselves; others are 
neutralized. I have known such a jeopardy. 
There was hard striving and above all much 
suffering . It is a deep pain to see men having 
[21] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

authority, whom we respect and love sincerely, 
condemning what we admire and casting an 
anathema over what we care for. I have been 
labouring under the inward feeling of those 
pioneers of the future who are conscious of our 
debt for the past. Inclined to piety by nature, 
I held a special veneration for old people and 
old traditions. And still the ferment which 
raised my young soul like a generous leaven 
raises the dough, put me in opposition to cur- 
rent ideas on social, political, and religious life. 

Happily for me I was obliged by very earnest 
circumstances to ponder over matters which 
could not be put aside. Some young men have 
no idea at all of questions. Some others per- 
ceive them from very far, as when we gaze on 
clouds running in the sky far away. Even the 
thunderclap comes to their ears quite weakened. 
Before others, questions appear suddenly as 
the revolver of a robber at the corner of a 
gloomy wood. There is no possibility of escape. 
Such was my case. 

I grew up in a time which was not an idyllic 
[22] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

one, a time full of battles, contrasts, con- 
flicts, individuals, interests, thoughts, at war 
against each other, emphasizing the differences, 
and above all floating in the air the cursed 
war-whoop, " I have nothing in common with 
thee!" Had I been bred among one-sided 
men, in a well-closed camp, having nothing to 
keep the equilibrium, perhaps I should have be- 
come a partisan, the man of a book, the lunatic 
of a formula. I would have found my glory in 
tearing myself from the adversaries and shout- 
ing also: "I have nothing in common with 
you." But now, led as by the hand of God, I 
may say, in a way where I met with men of 
all thoughts, I had with them quite loving 
relations, although between them there was 
often no more likeness than between fire and 
water. If one has never been entangled in 
such a precarious situation, he is not able to 
perceive how tragical it may be. When about 
twenty years old, on the point of religious 
matter I was tossed about between the most 
exclusive, the most traditional, orthodoxy, 
[23] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

and the free thought, the most bold if 
it was not the most negative and revolution- 
ary. Churches were battle-fields and there was 
on Sundays in perhaps every pulpit, storm, hail, 
lightning, and thunderclap. My good grand- 
mother coming back from this worship used 
to complain and say: "Is it not a pity to be a 
modest suffering people needing a word of 
comfort and to find only fightings of these 
legions ?" I kept each word in my heart and 
promised, if some day I should become a 
preacher, to preach just what my good grand- 
mother in her white moonshine cap would have 
wanted to hear preached. As to the politic, you 
must understand that I was an Alsatian, and 
the terrible war of 1870 was hardly over. There- 
fore I found myself in the focus of one of the 
most vehement national conflicts of modern 
history. My education had led me to under- 
stand the adversaries and to appreciate in each 
one the best they had. My grandfather was a 
German, my mother a French woman . Though 
I was a good Frenchman I liked Germany too, 
[24] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

and now I was half in despair to see my 
beloved little fatherland torn asunder. Instead 
of being what it ought to have been, a link 
between two nations, it became a bone of con- 
tention, and that for generations to come. 

On the social point of view, I was living 
among very disinherited and humble people 
and I was with them in full sympathy like with 
my own flesh. But I had relations and friends 
among the higher class, and there also I found 
wisdom, justice, and devotion. But there was 
no day when some one did not try to conquer 
me for his own and exclusive sake. And so I 
was between the anvil and the hammer. If it is 
a good place for having the character ham- 
mered, it is not, you can be sure, a very com- 
fortable one. 

I will give you a living instance of my tribu- 
lations in telling you an event of my student 
life. I had a very good friend who had 
been from his childhood enrolled under the 
banner of strict orthodoxy. He was a hearty 
fellow, and in his way a good Christian, but 
[25] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

looking upon every one which had not his 
catechism, as a very pagan. One day he 
took me apart and then in an intimate 
and pressing talk urged me on choosing 
deliberately between God and Satan — God, 
namely his creed. The creed of the neighbours 
was Satan. I openly told him the truth about 
my state of mind. I showed him I was quite 
unable to make such an exclusive choice, for 
I was seeing everything good at the right as 
well as at the left, and it would be a want of 
uprightness on my part to become the man of 
either party. Now my friend, moved to the ex- 
treme, stood up and stated strongly that I was 
under the sentence contained in Revelations 
III, 15 and 16, against those who are" lukewarm, 
neither hot nor cold," and he added that we 
were nevermore to meet again. You may fancy 
what was the state of my mind when I was 
alone in my room. I remembered another word 
of the Revelations where it said : " and I weft 
much'' 

Sometimes the tragical and the comical fol- 
[26] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

low each other as in the immortal plays of the 
great Shakspere. I want to narrate you a 
small incident which shall gladden the gloomy 
relation of theological wartime. The student 
who had excommunicated me was my intimate 
friend. Until this day we used to drink together 
after luncheon a cup of coffee, in our rooms at 
the old theological seminary of Strasbourg. In 
order to get a delicious and cheap cup of coffee 
we had bought together a tin coffee-pot. The 
day after the tragical scene I went up to 
the room of my friend where was the com- 
mon coffee-pot. I thought it was not impossi- 
ble to drink coffee together as before. But my 
friend was not of this opinion. He explained to 
me he was bound in conscience, though it was 
painful to him, not to have any intercourse 
with me from this day on. And the poor coffee- 
pot was left on the small shelf, lonely and 
silent, sad witness of a broken friendship. 

How do you find that ? You think that is mad, 
exaggerated, insane ? But you see such a com- 
prehension of life at every corner. We see 
[27] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

every day men who avoid each other and cut 
off any account of sociability because they have 
not the same creed or the same politics. And 
however men are divided by ideas or by 
interest, would it not be better they meet from 
time to time, were it only for drinking a cup of 
coffee or playing cricket ? That could be a way 
of understanding each other and it would be an 
open door to a future union. Tell me not that 
union between men is a foolish dream. It is the 
very aim we all shall drive toward. Never ought 
we to be consoled seeing the kingly cloak of hu- 
manity torn to pieces through our own hands. 
Tell me not the struggle for life in the world of 
thought, as in the world of business, is a fatal, 
an iron law. For the iron is in our hearts. And 
that is the reason why so many struggles are 
unjust ones, and so few people fight the good 

%ht. 

The more I was disturbed by that narrow- 
mindedness the more was growing in me a larger 
sight of things. Though I was sometimes worn 
out and driven to say, "Blessed those who can 
[28] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

say without reserve, Yes or No; 99 such discour- 
aged hours were bye-and-bye scarce. Even on 
the fields of battle my heart became more and 
more a silent place of refuge of higher justice. 
I begged the God, who is making His sun to 
rise on the evil and the good, to show me the 
right way. I felt that it was not only my right 
but my peculiar duty to bring together in my 
own soul as in a luminous and hospitable city the 
scattered sparks of good, without anathematiz- 
ing any one. Could I not love alike the old Gos- 
pel, all the very treasure of the past, and the 
thought of my times when it was just, noble, and 
consequently godsent ? Who would forbid me 
to love the France of St. Louis as well as the 
France of Coligny and also the France of Pas- 
teur? Who would forbid me to love the land 
of Corneille and Victor Hugo and the land of 
Luther and Goethe ? Could I not be a brother, 
too, of all social ranks and appreciate every 
one in its just aim in its working for common- 
wealth? Well, yes, I could, much more I 
ought to do it. For in the moral world: Power 
[29] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

is duty. Every day these thoughts were grow- 
ing stronger and my sadness was going on. An 
inward voice, an unseen friend, was whisper- 
ing at my ear, "Don't fear, I am thy helper" 
and out of my inward life I found the com- 
mentary of that word which struck me so much 
when later on I read your Emerson's, "Trust 
Thyself." 

The time had now come for me to speak; to 
express openly and in public the thoughts 
that had for a long time been working in the 
innermost recesses of my heart. For those who 
mean to speak in public, the first rule is to be 
silent — to be silent for a long time and to 
listen to the lessons of spirit and of experi- 
ence. But there is a time for everything; a time 
to be silent and to listen, and a time to speak. 
When once the time to speak has come, this is 
the chief rule to simplicity of speech : " Fear 
nothing and conceal nothing; speak as naturally 
as you breathe and live. Unfold your thought 
like a standard ! " 

As I would not adopt any official denomina- 
[30] ' 



CHARLES WAGNER 

tion or shibboleth, I found myself at the begin- 
ning absolutely isolated. No pulpit was open 
to me. Besides I was unknown, without a name 
and lacking authority. I was therefore truly a 
voice in the desert, but soon the desert woke 
to life. The man who expresses with energy 
things that have been lived through, that come 
from the deep well-springs of reality, will al- 
ways find an echo in the hearts of his hearers. 
Those who listen to him will recognize their 
holiest and most secret thoughts, strongly and 
clearly expressed; their consciences will an- 
swer: like answers a silent harp when a true 
voice strike its chords. 

I remember with joy those first gatherings 
in a small room where thoughts tried their 
strength as birds try their wings. There were 
no large audiences, but an assembly of earnest 
men of all classes of society, souls seeking 
eagerly, as I myself had sought so long, for a new 
and living form in which to express the old 
truth of faith and life. This summons to sim- 
plicity of faith or of act, to simplicity in the 
[31] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

expression of human and divine truth, went 
straight to their hearts. It seemed to them, 
when we explained the words of the Gospel, 
that the Voice of the Mount rang in their 
ears, and that the promise, €t My sheep hear 
My voice," was fulfilled. Their only regret 
was that these words of comfort and of en- 
couragement, these precious truths, should be 
heard by so few. 

The best way to spread them abroad was by 
books. I had arrived at the age of thirty-eight 
without having ever written a book. For me 
the true, the grand, the one book, was life, and 
all that I had learned, as a living active crea- 
ture, in that book, I preferred saying to wri- 
ting it. All my inclinations were for the fiery 
and ringing word. But I understood that speech 
was limited and could be fettered, whereas a 
book knows no distance or obstacle. A book 
goes everywhere. If it wins a favourable recep- 
tion, it becomes a companion, a friend; if one 
goes on a journey it is not left behind; before 
going to sleep at night one reads it; if ill, it keeps 
[32] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

one company. Moreover, a book can be trans- 
lated in all languages. 

And so I, who love to speak rather than to 
write; who preferred walking to being seated, 
and who would even have preferred riding to 
walking, I remained seated and I wrote. Yet 
my books were like stories of travels and bat- 
tles, vivid images of action and of life. 

At first I wrote "Justice" eight sermons, 
striking all in the same direction like eight 
hammer-strokes over the same nail. The book 
is a direct call to a fair mind and to the most 
elementary and simple rules of equity. In the 
preface I say: "If violence is the salvation of 
brutes, the salvation of men is justice!" 

After "Justice" I wrote "Youth" in 1892. It 
was the first of my works that was translated 
and published in America. In France it 
became my standard-bearer. It was the first 
book in which my thought, criticised by a very 
favourable press, reached a widely spread pub- 
lic. The book was crowned by the "Academie 
Fran9aise," and grew popular very rapidly. 
[33] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

Before having written it I was nameless, 
known only to a few friends. By "Youth" 
I became well known, and at that time I was 
called "the author of 'Youth'." 

I have always loved youth, and hope always 
to keep this love alive in my heart. Young peo- 
ple, too, have always been fond of me. In their 
company I have passed many happy hours. 
Having at first won their affection and confi- 
dence, I was enabled to be useful to them in 
many ways. Young people love those who love 
them, but let us always remember this: If we 
love Youth, we must respect its independence 
and not attempt to exercise undue pressure on 
it. To love young people is to be ready to under- 
stand them, to enter in their way of thinking. 
After you have acted in that way towards them, 
you may be sure that your example, your ideas, 
will have all the more influence if you have not 
attempted to lead them too much. At the period 
when I wrote "Youth" I was constantly sur- 
rounded by a club of young people sprung 
from the most varied social positions. In order to 
[34] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

learn to know them thoroughly I wished to 
come in contact with youth in all its most 
dissimilar shapes. The only condition of en- 
trance into our club was to be an honourable 
fellow. Catholics, Jews, workmen, clerks in 
business, students, all these different elements 
were mingled, and I became the friend of 
each and every member. We discussed all sub- 
jects, but had a predilection for such subjects 
as touched especially young men's lives and 
hearts. 

Each one was not only at liberty to express 
even the boldest opinions but we considered it 
a duty to do so. Our rule of discussion was as 
follows: To proclaim clearly one's own ideas, 
and to respect the feelings of others. For 
myself, as long as the discussion lasted, I in- 
terfered as little as possible, and only to keep it 
on its own lines. But once the battle over I 
said: 

" Now, gentlemen, that each of you has said 
what he thinks on the subject, allow me, in 
my turn, to express my thoughts on the matter." 
[35] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

Before my book "Youth" came out I read 
it aloud at these meetings and, so to say, 
tried the effect of it on the juvenile spirits 
that were for me an epitome of the youth 
of the present time. The book may be resumed 
as follows : In the first part, a kind of balance- 
sheet of civilization and an appreciation of 
modern life with its actual surroundings — the 
second part, the exposition of a new ideal of 
life. 

At the sitting of the Academy where the book 
was crowned, I was accompanied by a young 
and intelligent printer. When we left, he said 
to me: "'Youth ' is specially a book for stu- 
dents and cultivated persons. Now, Mr. Wagner, 
you ought to write another book, more con- 
cise, more within reach of all, that would be as 
a vigorous trumpet-call for young people, to 
encourage them to energy and lead them on to 
all noble aspirations." I immediately reflected 
on the way in which I could satisfy my young 
companion. In the course of that year I wrote 
" Vaillance, " a kind of vade-mecum for youth. 
[36] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

This book was also published in America, 
but its publication having coincided with the 
Cuban War, public attention was absorbed 
elsewhere. I think it well to call your attention 
to its existence. It is a book that has been 
widely read by my young countrymen in all 
classes of society. It has been for them a sup- 
port, and a help to keep in the straight path. 

After "Courage" I wrote " The Simple Life," 
which is the best known of my books in the 
United States. So I think it may interest you to 
hear an anecdote of its origin, which was acci- 
dental. Although all my childhood, breed- 
ing, experience and thinking, had led me 
to practise a simple life, never had I the 
idea to write about it. Naturally, all my be- 
haviour was simple. Such as a stone in falling, 
a bird flying, I loved simplicity and felt a re- 
pulsion for all artifice in language, thought, 
amusement, art, literature. But I was far from 
having the least inclination to theorize about 
it. And it was well so ; it was in conformity with 
an ever standing rule: "The best we have is 
[37] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

unconscious." But it needs only a small shock 
to be awakened. 

One day, calling upon Mrs. Edgar Quinet, 
the widow of our great thinker, Edgar Quinet, 
the late professor at the College de France, 
and Senator, that very graceful and spirited old 
woman said to me : 

" Mr. Wagner, would you be kind enough to 
bestow the wedding blessings upon my maid ? 
She is engaged to a workman and is to be mar- 
ried next week." 

I immediately agreed. 

The audience was small; the young be- 
trothed, their witnesses — Mrs. Edgar Quinet 
and Miss Buisson, the daughter of the well 
known French political leader, Ferdinand 
Buisson. I spoke in the way I used to do in such 
opportunities, with a cordial sympathy for the 
young couple and a perfect simplicity. 

A few weeks afterward Miss Buisson came 
to be married also. In the very intimate talk 
I had with her about that important event she 
said to me: 

[38] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

"May I ask a great favour of you, may I ? " 

"Certainly you may." 

* Well, be so kind as to make a speech on my 
marriage-day, exactly in the same way as you 
did when you performed the ceremony of the 
marriage of Mrs. Quinet's maid." 

"Oh! that is not very easy. At the maid's 
marriage there were only six present, at your 
wedding there will be more than a thousand peo- 
ple: members of parliament, ministers, pro- 
fessors, members of the Academy, all kinds of 
learned people. The way of speaking ought not 
to be the same when we have such a select 
audience." 

Mr. Buisson, who had been listening to these 
last words, smiled and said : 

*' Mr. Wagner, don't be anxious about that, 
and let it be done according to the wish of my 
daughter. You will please her exceedingly." 

I promised to do it. In my wedding speech 

before the most clever people of Paris, I spoke in 

an unpretending way about simple life, and 

urged upon my young friends my deep con- 

[39] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

viction that the very happiness of life lay in a 
true and normal mode of living. 

Among my hearers was Mr. Armand Col- 
lins, one of the foremost publishers of Paris. 
As soon as he reached home he sent me a 
letter asking me to write for his firm a book 
about the subject of my address. We met some 
days later and had a talk. After that talk, 
though it was very short, I felt so full of 
thought concerning the projected book that, 
immediately walking across the street, I began 
to take notes, and I had not reached my home 
when all the heads of chapters were fixed. I 
had the book in myself without knowing it. 
And so "The Simple Life" saw the light of 
publicity like a well-formed healthy little child 
born in the most favourable conditions. 

"The Simple Life" was a great success in 
France. All the papers spoke of it with sym- 
pathy. In particular there was an article by Mr. 
Francois Coppee, which was a pleasant surprise 
for me. It is this book that has made me so 
widely known in America and won me the 
[40] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

friendship of many citizens of this country, and 
particularly that of President Roosevelt. I 
had long honoured in my heart your President, 
whose name is pronounced with respect in 
all countries and is in France so deeply hon- 
oured and admired. Shall I tell you in what 
circumstances I learned that he had read " The 
Simple Life " ? It was in September, 1902, 1 was 
just taking a good rest as it is a rule of simple 
life and lying on the sands on the beach of the 
West French Island Oleron. Surrounded by a 
number of old fishermen I was telling them 
stories. One of my children brought me a letter 
from America. It was a friendly note from Dr. 
Lyman Abbott, the editor of The Outlook, to 
which I had contributed some articles. The 
editor wrote to me in French to inform me that 
President Roosevelt had spoken of "The 
Simple Life " in a public speech he had made at 
Bangor, and that he sent me word to be sure to 
come and see him if ever I travelled in the United 
States. This letter caused me extreme pleasure. 
I spoke of it at once to the old companions 
[41] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

near me, adding: "I fear that I shall never 
be able to go to the United States, for I do not 
know a word of English." 

One of the old fishermen, lying on the sand, 
said : u English can be learned ? In your place, 
Mr. Wagner, I would learn it at once." 

"You are right," said I, starting off home 
to tell the good news to my family and to begin 
learning English. 

After "The Simple Life" I was known in 
the United States as the author of " The Better 
Way" (French: "L'Ami"), a book of medita- 
tions and interior dialogues. I wrote it in 
grief and anguish, and suffering hearts under- 
stood it. . . . 

"By the Fireside" was then brought out here. 
This book was written to pay a debt of gratitude 
to family life which gave me so much and which 
I hold the corner-stone of human life. 

I can not speak to you in detail of all my 

books, as I have written a full dozen, but I 

must announce that shortly will be published 

in English a sketch book on which Miss Mary 

[42] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

Louise Hendee is at work. This book has been 
written by the poet that lives in my heart, for 
I am a poet and shall die a poet. I could say 
as the poet Gerock says in his beautiful song 
of the twilight : 

" And all my soul became a song. 9 * 

My sketch-book is entitled "The Soul of 
Things." It is a collection of nature pictures 
and scenes of life whence by direct ob- 
servation superior truths are born. This book 
has been written slowly, day by day; begun 
before the others, I continue it still, and it will 
only be closed with my life. Alas! what are 
men's words to express life! The deepest im- 
pressions are inexpressible. The most beautiful 
songs have never been sung and the finest pic- 
tures have never been painted ! 

Since my books have been spread in the 

world they have met with such a sympathy that 

in my boldest wishes I had never been able to 

conceive. They have been translated in Eng- 

[43] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

lish, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Swed- 
ish, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish. They caused 
me to be brought into a large contact with my 
own countrymen of Paris and France, and I 
was introduced through them to a great many 
men of all tongues and of all nations. That was 
the result of the current of ideas deeply human 
and kindly disposed which were met with in my 
books. The thoughts which are to be found in 
them are strongly and frankly expounded, but 
there is neither irony nor bitter polemic. Living, 
as I do, out of the deepest roots of humanity, 
it has been a great satisfaction for me to be un- 
derstood by men of very different breeding and 
creed. From everywhere I received letters from 
people telling me they were my brethren. How 
many other people, who do not believe as I do, 
have been writing to me in such a way: 

" We love your books because they are a help 
to living; they induce us to act and to love; 
they are like a sunbeam which warmeth the 
soul." 

Is it not the highest reward for the writer, 
[44] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

to meet people he has never seen before, grasp- 
ing his hand, like old good fellows and breth- 
ren ? How often have I had this joy! As I wish 
to be chiefly a man, I have been able to sym- 
pathize with every one whatever might be his 
own business, and I became bye-and-bye the free 
chosen confident and confessor of a great many 
souls. I have been reading in the inward book 
of the heart of so many people of all kinds, and 
I have loved them all, and I communicate with 
them in those depths of our human nature where 
the true Gospel leads us, wherein there is no 
more Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor freeman. 
My books brought in my Sunday meetings 
many new hearers. Some of those to whom it 
had been said that I was a dangerous, even 
deluded man, sought direct information, came 
over to listen to me, and became my faithful 
followers. My meeting hall on Boulevard Beau- 
marchais, though far from the centre of Paris, 
was every Sunday I used to preach, quite filled 
up. And the more I was talking about the burn- 
ing problems of the day, very calmly and frank- 
[45] ' 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

ly, the more the audiences were crowding. An 
old Lutheran clergyman, pastor — President 
Kuhn — having read my book " The Better 
Way," wrote to me: "You ought to preach on 
the distress of the soul." Immediately I began 
a series of sermons on this subject. At each 
sermon the number of my hearers was in- 
creasing, in such a way that the hall became 
too small and I was obliged to give up my 
scheme. 

But we cannot leave without answer all 
these eager souls who want to listen to the 
eternal old truth in a new language, and we 
shall be obliged as it is written in the Book, 
"To raise up the lintels and to open larger 
doors." God shall be our help, as He has been 
to this day. The One who has sent me to preach, 
and does incline so many hearts to this message, 
shall direct a great many friends who will do their 
best to help His servant in bestowing on him 
the necessary means to prosecute His scheme. 

Having come to this part of my talk, let me 
express some objection which may remain in 
[46] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

your mind about simple life. Perhaps some 
of my hearers may say : Do you seriously think 
that the simple life can be lived in a time like this, 
amidst the business, the noise, and the exi- 
gencies of modern civilization ? Is not simplicity, 
although lovely and graceful, a far away 
shining light of the past, which will never more 
come back to us ? 

To those who put this question I reply with a 
complete conviction : 

Simplicity is not any exterior good belonging 
to a special time. Simplicity is a state of mind, 
like uprightness and probity, a state of mind 
which, in a certain degree, belongs to the most 
indispensable condition of life. The less we 
have it the more we need it. The exterior com- 
plications of our present life come from our 
want of simplicity in heart, otherwise we would 
soon be able to change our life. No time needs 
more to be taught simplicity than a time like 
ours. It needs simplicity like a dry land needs 
water. 

A friend of mine, the French poet Jean 
[47] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

Aicard, describing the African desert, Sahara, 
says: 

" Tout le grand desert, reve d'une chose; 
Un goutte d'eau pour faire une fleur" 

"All the great desert dreams but one: a drop 
of water to make a flower." 

Often when I look over cities like Paris, New 
York, and other monstrous places of the same 
kind, when I look at the life of the people in 
the cities, who run, push each other, have no 
time to be the husbands' of their wives, the 
fathers of their children, it seems as though 
I look over a big sunburned desert in which the 
living heart of men, the feeling soul of every- 
one dreams about a drop of heavenly water, of 
fresh, healthy, and normal life for making a 
flower of happiness and peace. If the tired pil- 
grim, worn out towards the evening for having 
made so many miles, is ripe for reaching the 
f atherhouse, we, men of to-day, are ripe for 
simplicity, 

[48] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

But there is another and perhaps better reason 
for speaking about such a matter in America, 
and here may be my personal message to this 
people. The more I know you the more I un- 
derstand that at the bottom of your national 
life is a great and powerful simplicity. Some 
weeks ago I was in Philadelphia in your Inde- 
pendence Hall. I felt as if I were in an inspiring 
sanctuary. I looked at the pictures of the men 
who made America: Washington, Benjamin 
Franklin, Jefferson, the Pilgrim Fathers, and — 
one who is more nearer us — your immortal Ab- 
raham Lincoln. And all that I saw, around the 
impressive cradle of your republic, was heroic 
simplicity. Some days afterward, coming to 
Washington, I stopped before the White House 
and was struck to find it so very different to the 
political houses of kings and kaisers. No exterior 
glory, no view of soldiers and army, but a high 
and grateful and bright simplicity. And within 
where I was allowed to grip and hail the man 
who is, by the will of the people, the head of the 
greatest republic in the world, I found him 
[49] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

so plain, and, although he is a most strong, 
intelligent, and decided character, so tender- 
hearted, and all over so straightout and spon- 
taneous, that I understood better than ever 
— at the bottom of American history, at the 
bottom of your most venerable traditions and 
your best men, is a great, magnificent simplicity. 

To keep this golden rule will be your salva- 
tion. We have not to be the slaves of our an- 
cestors but to stay true to the first inspiration 
which is the secret of our national health. And 
so, as a Pilgrim and a guest and as one who 
loves you and your children the more he knows 
you, let me deliver you my message: Teach the 
boys and the girls of this beautiful country to 
look at the men who made America. Before a 
face like that of Lincoln, no pride, no vain- 
glorious and superficial vanity can stay. Such 
faces are open books wherein is written this 
very life. So never forget it, otherwise you 
would forget your first love, and America 
would no more be America. 

And now this hour is already over, where 
[50] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

we have been talking about the greatest of all 
concerns. But if this hour has been short, I hope 
it may have a long and useful consequence. 
May we all take a resolution. It matters little 
which land we are dwelling in, which language 
we are speaking, the social or religious creed 
we believe in, all of us ought to be converted 
to simple life. 

* We are all the same at the bottom " was writ- 
ten to me by President Roosevelt in one of his 
letters. We lose the fruit of life when we com- 
plicate our life in such a way that there is no 
more a spot for the only necessary thing. And so 
our deeds, our institutions, and our whole civili- 
zation are judged by the word of Christ. * The 
Sabbath has been made for man and not man for 
the Sabbath." Religious and social institutions, 
science and industry, the endeavour of men's 
struggles, all that is to be combined to help us 
live the very life, to be better and happier, 
stronger and more brotherly. But we must 
take care. All that, instead of being an instru- 
ment for justice and peace, may become an en- 
[51] 



MY APPEAL, TO AMERICA 

tanglement and a bondage, and man may per- 
ish under the burden of his own creations in the 
same way as is perishing in our big cities the 
poor child deprived of pure air. 

What is the greatest danger of to-day ? 

When man is depraved, weakened, disparaged 
by his own work, by his evil managed power, his 
badly used conquests, his instincts become 
vices, his knowledge turns into mere denial 
and scepticism, his faith into fanaticism, his 
comfort into decay, his patriotism into hatred 
of the foreigner, and his love of himself into 
selfishness. In a word, every function is deprived 
of its aim, every cistern void of the promised 
water. This is the great, the threatening jeop- 
ardy of to-day, 

Every one has met people who are fond of as- 
serting that man is descended from the monkey. 
Some are very happy to hear that and prompt 
to believe it; some others hold such an asser- 
tion sacrilegious. That apish ancestor makes 
them wild with horror. Looking at myself, I 
am not much troubled over such an ancestry, 
[52] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

neither do I glory in it. I have written some- 
where that I should like even to be an ant pro- 
vided I may become an ant of God. And if God, 
in leading men from dust to the spirit has 
chosen so many intermediate and humble 
ways, why are we to take offence at it ? I don't 
care about the way, provided it is an ascending 
one. Well. But let me tell you what we ought to 
be afraid of. We have to be afraid, not of the 
monkey of the beginning, which after all re- 
mains a puzzle; we have to be afraid of the 
monkey of the end. Yes, when I see individuals 
and societies going astray out of the right path, 
I have sometimes the terrific vision of mankind 
coming down to the brute. I look at man end- 
ing in a sort of monkey, hideous outcome of 
our moral deformity, our decay, our accu- 
mulated degeneracy. To descend from a mon- 
key and grow a man, after all, that is an im- 
provement and a gigantic one! 

But to be men; having given birth to Moses, 
Plato, Jesus Christ, having subdued the powers 
of nature, having made the thunder the horses 
[53] 



MY APPEAL TO AMERICA 

of his carriages, and the lightning his messenger; 
having done all that, and then to forget it all, 
running towards the beast in the baseness of 
the appetites, the ferociousness of the feelings, 
the eclipse of conscience — what a downfall in 
darkness! What a tragical end in the mud of 
the abyss ! 

Yet that shall never be. That divine sower 
who sprinkled stars in the endless skies and 
sowed men in the gloomy fields of the earth 
has fixed for us another fate. It may be that 
men go astray; but it is not forever. The soul 
is thirsting for the true and higher life and it 
comes back always to the fresh well-spring. 

The coming back to the very well-spring of a 
simple and true life: that is what we are 
preaching. We beg the souls full of good-will, 
to gather together for that end all over the 
world. We urge them to realize simplicity, 
brotherhood, to bring from everywhere what- 
ever good they have in them, and to ally them- 
selves to fight against all the evil, which 
consume us. 

[54] 



CHARLES WAGNER 

I am happy with a deep and complete joy in 
observing how numerous are in this country 
the friends who understand such teaching. 

I am thanking the Almighty that He has led 
me amidst you. And I may say that I feel not at 
all a stranger here. I feel as if I was one of you 
coming back from a long journey abroad. 

Help me by your sympathy. May your heart 
throbbing in time with my own confer on me a 
renewed power and a stronger impulse! So I 
shall rise up every morning for the good fight to 
strengthen the power of the simple life in myself 
and in others, that I may be able to deliver the 
helpful message to all those who are my breth- 
ren in pain and also in hope. 

The simple life is the true life. It shall re- 
main when the vainglory of day shall be but 
mere dust. And its aim shall last for evermore, 
even when the stars of heaven, tired of their 
long watches in the nights, shall close their eyes 
like children who want to sleep. 



APPENDIX 



New York, December 15, 1904. 

To the American Friends of Pastor Wagner and 
his work in Paris : 

Pastor Wagner left America on the first of 
December. His presence in this country brought 
a great blessing. He has now returned to his 
work of translating the old truth in the words of 
to-day to his great Paris audience. 

Friends near to him saw clearly his intense 
anxiety concerning the work to which his life 
is devoted. This solicitude is the outcome of the 
great limitation upon his constantly increasing 
power for good. He cannot, for want of a suffi- 
ciently commodious hall in which to speak, 
receive the crowds that come to hear his 
instruction. 

His Parisian friends are ready to give him a 
hall worthy of his work. Although they are 
people of intelligence and learning, their finan- 
[59] 



APPENDIX 



cial resources are very modest. The great ob- 
stacle to the fulfilment of Pastor Wagner's 
hopes appears in the great cost of the land 
needed for the halL The situation causes him 
very great solicitude. 

Many American friends of Pastor Wagner are 
seriously impressed by the position of his af- 
fairs, and are anxious that his service to this 
country should be recognized by substantial aid 
to the need of his Paris work. An eligible site 
facing a public square can be bought for a sum 
of $80,000 to $100,000. Cannot this sum be 
raised for him in this country ? Thus, if America 
will give the land, France will give the building. 

We know the man. His books are his best 
witnesses. His public personal service is the 
centre from which his ideas and books were 
evolved. It is a focus of life and light that has 
universal interest. The appeal is for the 
strengthening of this focus. If American friends 
do their best and present the ground for the 
new hall to the good Pastor, he will be relieved 
from his present burden of anxiety, and will 
[60] 



APPENDIX 

be free for the larger work that is now only 
awaiting the greater facilities that will appear in 
the hoped-for building to be known as "The 
House of the Soul." 

The undersigned are a voluntary committee 
for the object as herein stated. Every sum, great 
or small, will be welcomed as a precious sign of 
interest. The Treasurer will gladly receive and 
acknowledge all remittances. 

Levi P. Morton, New York. 
Hamilton W. Mabie, New York. 
Lyman Abbott, New York. 
Albert Shaw, New York. 
William Jay Schieffelin, New York. 
Robert C. Qgden, New York. 
Robert Treat Paine, Boston. 
Charles Miller, Franklin, Pa. 
Joseph Elkinton, Philadelphia. 
John Wanamaker, Philadelphia. 
George Foster Peabody, 
Treasurer, 
54 William Street, New York. 
[61] 



A COMPLETE LIST OF THE 

WORKS OF 

DR. CHARLES WAGNER 



TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 

THE SIMPLE LIFE. 

A recall from the complexities of modern life 
to a simpler and saner method of existence. Pub- 
lished by McClure, Phillips & Co. 

THE BETTER WAY. 

Words of comfort for those in despair or sad- 
ness. Published by McClure, Phillips & Co. 

BY THE FIRESIDE. 

Intimate counsels on home duties, rewards and 
pleasures. Published by McClure, Phillips & 
Co. 

ON LIFE'S THRESHOLD. 

Being talks on character and conduct ad- 
dressed chiefly to the young. Published by 
McClure, Phillips & Co. 

MY APPEAL TO AMERICA. 

Being my first American lecture. Published 
by McClure, Phillips & Co. 
[65] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Also : 

YOUTH. 

A book striking the moral balance of the present 
epoch for the young men of this time. Published 
by Dodd, Mead & Co. 

COURAGE. 

A call to arms in behalf of goodness and duty. 
Published by Dodd, Mead & Co. 

IN FRENCH 

JUSTICE. 

Practical sermons about equity in everything. 



LE LONGUE DU CHE-1 
MIN (Translation) 
BY THE ROAD- 
SIDE. 



L'AMI DES CHOSES 
(Translation) THE 
SOUL OF THINGS 

[66] 



Two sketch books. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

L'EVANGILE DE LA VIE (Translation) 
THE GOSPEL OF LIFE. 

Religious addresses. 

HISTOIRES ET FARCIBOLES (Transla- 
tion) DROLL TALES. 

Tales, amusing and moral, for children from 
eight to twelve years old. 

LIBRE PENSE ET PROTESTANTISM 
LIBERAL (Translation) FREE 
THOUGHT AND LIBERAL PROT- 
ESTANTISM. 

An answer by Mr. Wagner to four letters from 
Mr. Ferdinand Bunon. 

Pastor Wagner preaches in Paris at 91 Boule- 
vard Beaumarchais every other Sunday at quarter 
past ten. All his friends in America who come 
to Paris and care to hear him, have only to write 
him a letter, and they will receive a card of 
admission. 

THE McCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK 



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